WEEK-END HAPPENINGS

Happy Saturday to all of you! Hope everyone is enjoying their nice long week-end. I know I am. Thanksgiving was SUCH a nice time. It took a little longer than I thought to set up our table as we ended up having to move furniture to accommodate our big dining room table in the new house, but that’s OK. I am thankful that it DID fit, and that the new house has a formal dining room to begin with, even if it is smaller, lol .

The turkey was yummy and the potatoes weren’t lumpy, (I cheated this year and made instant garlic potatoes (yum, yum, yum) instead of peeling a bijillion potatoes ~ Mel wasn’t here and that is her job, haha) the gravy was smooth (from a jar, soo about easy this year) the stuffing was sooo yummy (so I ate too much of it ~ can we say heartburn) and the pumpkin pie was perfect, in spite of the fact that I dumped pumpkin pie filling EVERYWHERE when I was making it as I filled the pies too full and then the cookie sheet I always put them on to bake didn’t fit in my new oven right…sigh…But I have to tell you about our BIG event…Right after we had read praise scriptures which I put inside the name tags, (even little Blake did very well with this) and we held hands and thanked the Lord for all of His wonderful blessings, we sat down, passed the food and filled our plates and had just begun to enjoy our dinners when suddenly our smoke detecter went off. Now you have to know that Jeff had just installed one the week before after he realized the new house did not have one. Looking around and of course not seeing a fire anywhere ( and we had not noticed ANY smoke) we figured maybe the oven had been smoking from spilled juice or something (though nothing had spilled that I had recalled) my husband got up and went around the corner of the dining room and quickly exclaimed, “WOW…OH my goodness!” so my brother-in-law quickly followed him into the kitchen and from their cries I knew something major was happening, so I of course flew to the kitchen as well to see the last of the flames being put out!! I could hardly believe it….a FULL BLOWN FIRE. I had a small scented candle I had placed on the counter and somehow in the carving of the turkey and the final preparations it had gotten pushed too close to a flower arrangement and it eventually caught on fire. This in turn ignited the counter and wall, a section of the curtains and our new blinds on the window! It was all a pretty small area, but still! We quickly opened the windows and then believe it or not simply set down and finished our dinner…I am sooo thankful that it wasn’t any worse than it was. It could have been really bad…I am soo thankful my hubby had just installed that smoke detecter…and I am soo thankful no one was hurt in the putting out of the fire or that the smoke really didn’t get very bad at all, I am soo thankful that really the damage was VERY manageable in that we are talking some new blinds, new curtains, and a little patch on the wall (that for now can be hidden by another flower arrangement) that we can sand and re-paint after Christmas. Now the counter has a couple of small spots too (also hidden by the new arrangement)….but truthfully I have been wanting to replace this counter with some granite anyway. We had granite at our old house for the last 7 years and I had soo loved it. (it wouldn’t have burned like this). We did soo much with this house when we moved in that we had decided to leave the counter for a couple of years or so ~ but now we might have to speed that up a little….All in all just another reason to thank Him, and an important lesson learned….I will blow out ALL candles in the kitchen (if I even light them again EVER) BEFORE anything else is placed on the counter. The rest of our day went pretty smooth after that, haha. We enjoyed wonderful conversation, gifted my step dad on his 86th birthday, and everyone eventually signed our new Thanksgiving tablecloth that was the new tradition we started this year. I heard about this idea from a wonderful blog that I read, and it was such a good idea that I could hardly wait to begin it. I took an old white table cloth that I have had for years (it is HUGE and really quite pretty) and got gold and black marker pens and everyone who came wrote a small little something on the table cloth as to what they were thankful for and then signed their names and the date. We will do this year after year until there isn’t any room left. What a wonderful way to look back over the years and see first hand what everyone was most thankful for. Now my mom wasn’t able to write hers as her handwriting is till kind of shaky, and she really didn’t feel comfortable with it, but she dictated to me and I wrote for her…I hope everyone had as nice a day as we did ~ minus the fire of course….


Friday we spent the ENTIRE day digging out our Christmas boxes and treasures and trying to find new places for everything in our new house. In the end, LOTS of things got packed back up and I will have to pass them down to our kids or sell them or give them away or something. Just wasn’t room, but that is OK…I have soo much, and everything looks wonderful in our new home. I will post some pictures later. Today we will put up our tree and finish the outdoor lights.

Today is my oldest son Joe’s 38th birthday! Yes, you heard me right…I have a 38 year old son; doesn’t seem possible even to me, haha. I had Joe very shortly after my 18th birthday so he really does have a young mom I have always told him, lol. How I love this man. He has blessed my life in soo many ways over his lifetime I don’t think I could ever really express it properly. He is generous and loving and supportive and talented and I thank God every single day for gifting me with the privilege of being his mother. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Joseph and may the Lord bless you, and keep you, and make His face to shine upon you, NOW AND ALWAYS….Love you soo….